Improvements to footways, crossing points, road signs, street furniture and road surfaces are to begin in Shrewsbury town centre later this month (week commencing 17 February 2020).

The work – being carried out by us as part of the Shrewsbury Integrated Transport Package (SITP) – will be carried out between Smithfield Road and Bellstone, on Roushill, Mardol and Claremont Street.

The work will be carried out in phases, and will be completed in early 2021.

On these streets new natural stone kerb lines will be constructed to provide wider footways and new pedestrian crossing points. The footways will be repaved with high-quality natural stone materials.

Updated street furniture, and traffic sign upgrades are planned.

Resurfacing of the roads will be carried out during the course of the year as each phase of the work is completed. This will minimise the impact that a long period of road closures would have, and enable work to be completed as early as possible.

There will be some short-term closures for drainage connection work, and on-street parking spaces and loading bays will be unavailable during the work.

All road closures as part of the scheme will be publicised in advance, and access to premises will be maintained.

To avoid any disruption visitors to the town centre are encouraged to use the park and ride service – or to park in Frankwell or Abbey Foregate car parks, rather than the car parks within the river loop.

While work is carried out Shropshire Council and Shrewsbury BID will be trialling different ways of using the parking and loading bays. For example, a number of mini parks – or parklets – are being planned.

Work will be carried out by McPhillips, Shropshire Council’s contractor. During the works they will be available to address any day-to-day issues that may arise, liaising with businesses regarding loading bay requirements, and accessibility to business and residential premises

The work is in keeping with the aims of the Shrewsbury Big Town Plan and will ensure that these streets match the look and feel of High Street, which underwent improvement work last summer.

The Shrewsbury Integrated Transport Package work is externally funded, via the Marches LEP and developer contributions. This next phase of work will cost c. £2m.

More information about the Shrewsbury Integrated Transport Package can be found here.

Questions can also be emailed to SITP@shropshire.gov.uk

Looking ahead

The area around the Darwins structure and the junction of Mardol and Claremont Street have been subject to a review over recent weeks, following a request made to us. Further design work has been undertaken which will look to extend the proposed raised area of carriageway further down Claremont Street to incorporate the crossing point by the market entrance. A costing exercise is currently being undertaken, and if approved the works will be incorporated into the scope of the scheme. Further details on the revised layout and programme of works will be released as part of our next newsletter in October.

In the meantime, taking into account material deliveries and the need to observe the Christmas embargo, the scheme will not be complete in its entirety until Spring ’21, although we'll obviously do all we can to bring this forward.

Further information

Park and ride – Shrewsbury’s Meole Brace park and ride service will operate every 10 minutes from 3 February (from 7.30am - 10am and 4pm – 6.30pm – with a 15 minute frequency from 10am – 4pm). The Harlescott service will operate every 10 minutes from 6 April.